A mystery object in the Washington state sky captured by a local weather photographer near Whidbey Island on Sunday morning was not a missile, according to military officials at a Naval air station on the island.

Greg Johnson, with Skunk Bay Weather, spotted the mysterious object while combing through photos from a weather camera on the Kitsap Peninsula. The mystery photo was taken at 3:56 a.m. Sunday, KCPQ-TV reported.

"I feel strongly it was a missile launch," Johnson told KCPQ-TV.

Tom Mills, a spokesman for the Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, located near Oak Harbor, Washington, told the television it has no missile launch capabilities.

"There's a lot of speculation around here," Mills told KCPQ-TV, who suggested the object could be lens flare. "But it's definitely not a missile launch."

Cliff Mass, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, posted the photo on his blog Monday, suggesting it looks like a missile.

"I have never heard of rocket launches from Whidbey Island Air station in Oak Harbor," Mass wrote. "And checking online, I cannot find any discussion of this feature. This feature does not look like a meteor, nor are there any meteor reports for the area that I could find online.

"The lightning networks did not show a strike in that area.”

Tyler Rogoway, editor of The War Zone, said on the website The Drive that the image may be simply distorted.

"I happen to be experienced with complex time-lapse photography," Rogoway said. "It's worth noting that this type of photography can result in the appearance of distorted time and space in multiple ways. You are looking at a two-dimensional image of a complex 3D event, under unique lighting and environmental circumstances.”

"What looks like a rocket being traced by its own exhaust plume as it rises into the heaves can actually be an object on a flat or even a descending profile coming towards you, or even an object moving away," he added.

A mystery object in the Washington state sky captured by a local weather photographer near Whidbey Island on Sunday morning was not a missile, according to military officials at a Naval air station on the island.